*Okay, so here I am with a new post about my Star Wars
Project. I know, I’ve only recently gone
through a major change up on my timeline project. But here I am about to do another one.

*So, I’ve discovered a timeline that I would have sworn I looked
at before I settled on DinoJim and Joe Bongiorno as my guides this last time I
changed timelines. I know I went to the
website and I was sure that I had looked at it, but apparently I had not. I know this because I just did look at it and it is exactly what I
was looking for last time.

*So, I’m going to be switching to using it and I’m going to talk
here in this post about why I think this is kind of the perfect timeline for my
project.

*Mullin defends his own particular style of chronology much better
than I can in an introduction to his own timeline. But briefly, he has simplified things back
into a “in what order should I read these stories?” kind of thing. He admits that there is certainly a place for
incredibly detailed timelines as reference guides.

*As you might
note, this is, quite literally a chapter by chapter journey through The Phantom
Menace novelization, or rather, all the TPM novelizations, comics, tie-ins,
etc. This is, in its incredible detail,
fascinating stuff. It is also, of
course, nigh onto impossible to even try to read the books this way.

*DinoJim’s
timeline is more simplified, but Rob’s is more simplified yet. He takes you through the era’s in less
detailed fashion, but it’s a style that appeals to me. He would have you read, for instance, the
larger texts of an era first and then go back and fill in the cracks, as
opposed to trying to break all the works up by page numbers, etc.

*In this way,
he emphasizes splitting books and stories up fairly seldom which is something
of a virtue, I think.

*Now, Rob’s
timeline isn’t perfect. For one thing,
it’s not updated nearly as often as either Jim’s or Joe’s. It’s also not as complete as either of
those. For one thing, I noted instantly
that Rob’s timeline doesn’t include the Despotica, which I’ve already reviewed
a couple of those. I’m not sure if it’s
because the works are fairly obscure and he missed them or if they hadn’t come
out yet in December 2010, when he did his last update. Either way, they’re legitimately interesting
EU works that aren’t included on his timeline.

*So, how do I
deal with this? Well, I’ve hit on what I
think is a rather ingenious idea.

*In short, I’m going to go with Rob’s timeline as my default. So, I will begin at the beginning of his
timeline and go with it. This simplifies
my reading schedule quite a bit and helps my reviews be a little longer and not
so short.

*However, at each era break in Rob’s timeline, I will go back to
DinoJim’s timeline and Joe Bongiorno’s timeline and go back through their
timelines, picking up anything that isn’t on Rob’s timeline.

*This will allow me to simplify even the things not reflected on Rob’s
timeline since, when I go back to Joe’s timeline, things that he broke up into
multiple pieces will all be together.

*I don’t know if this makes any sense to you. At the moment, things will not be
particularly complicated, as I begin posting my reviews here. Eventually, the hope is that it won’t even
matter what order I post in, since you’ll have my dedicated Star Wars page to
go by.

*So, Visionaries . . . we talked a bit about Visionaries
before when I reviewed Prototypes, the ridiculous story about Durge, and the
story about Dooku creating Grievous, which it seems was called The Eyes of
Vengeance or something. My memory is
patchy about Visionaries, which is somewhat merciful, I think (though I did
like the Dooku story and the Maul/Obi-Wan story; nothing else was really worth
the paper it was printed on, but whatever).

*So, I pulled out my copy of it again and took a look at The
Fourth Precept. This story can be
summarized very briefly. Over six pages
of stunning visuals, two figures have a lightsaber fight in space, the heart of
the earth, maybe some other places, I dunno, before ending up poised together,
their bodies perfectly balanced against each other.

*In other words, you might want to load up on the Mary Jane
before you start this one.

*Ok, so let’s plumb the text here. Well, the story is completely dialogue free,
but the title gives a clue. The Fourth
Precept would be, I am assuming, a reference to the Jedi Code, of which the
fourth precept is “There is no death, there is the Force.”

*WELL OKAY ACTUALLY THAT WAS NO HELP AT ALL.

*So, here’s something that I found really amusing about this
one in a meta way. I am using three
timelines in conjunction on this project and while there are certainly moments
where the timelines disagree with each other, there is surely no story about
which the three timelines are as violently divided as they are on this
one.

*In my “baseline” timeline, or the default one, Rob Mullins
places this story at 25,783 years before A New Hope. He calls it, in a note on the entry, “A
surreal amalgamation of images,” which works for me. He then states that he believes it to be a
mythological telling of the foundations of the Jedi religion, which is why he
places it here. He sees it, then, as a
myth about how the Jedi order began and, since we don’t really have any serious
information about that beginning yet, we place this story here as the best
representation yet. Okay, I suppose in
some ways this works; the story ends with the opposing figures in balance with
each other, so I suppose the rationale is that the moment when the Jedi Order
began was the moment when balance and order came to a disordered and chaotic
galaxy.

*Joe Bongiorno over at The Star Wars Expanded Universe
Timeline, on the other hand, places it at the very, very end of his timeline,
just before a batch of public service announcements released in the late
seventies to tie in with the movies, released, that is, in this galaxy, where
Artoo and Threepio had apparently stumbled.
So, here’s the question, and I may be putting words in his mouth a bit,
but it appears to me that Joe’s perspective seems to be that the story is some
sort of apocalypse. It comes after
Storyteller, by far the oldest story in the GFFA, and just prior to the
beginning of Star Wars bleeding over into our own galaxy. Is The Fourth Precept about the apocalypse
that ends the Galaxy Far Far Away?
Evidence in support of this?
Well, the fourth precept, which gives this story its title is about
death and how the Force survives even death.
Is this about how even in the death of a galaxy, the Force remains in
balance?

*DinoJim splits the difference over at this Star Wars
Timeline Checklist. He puts the story in
a separate list from his main timeline and labels it Infinities.

*So, this is either a creation myth of the Jedi order, the
story of the apocalypse of the GFFA or it didn’t actually happen at all. Frankly, I’m going with the third option.

*I mean, okay, I’m not going to be a total grump. I will admit that the art is quite
spectacular. But this is a story that
forces you to ask if pictures, completely devoid of narrative context or
emotional resonance, is enough for you.
I say no. Your mileage may vary.